Computers have become commonplace in a great number of applications. Depending upon the data storage and retrieval requirements of a particular application, a computer will typically be configured with a certain combination of memory devices. This is because each particular memory device has particular advantages and disadvantages in terms of cost, speed, and storage capacity.
For example, memory such as cache memory has very fast read and write times, but it is typically one of the most costly types of memories and is often impractical to use on a large scale. On the other hand, writeable disk drives, such as magnetic hard disk drives or optical drives, are much less costly and provide a very large storage capacity, but generally have slower data transfer rates. Additionally, hard disk drives can store data indefinitely even after power is no longer supplied. In between cache memory and disk drives is solid state memory, which is not as fast as cache memory but is less expensive. Further, solid state memory is faster than hard disk drives but still significantly more expensive. Thus, solid state memory is simply not yet practical for very large storage requirements where several Gigabytes or even Terabytes of memory are needed.
Yet, to read or write data to a hard disk drive or optical drive, for example, a read/write head has to be aligned with the disk while it is moving to correctly transfer data to and from the disk. As a result, disk drives typically are susceptible to read and write errors caused by movement or vibration. That is, the read/write head may be jarred out of alignment with the spinning disk causing data transfer errors to occur. Even worse, such vibrations may cause damage to the moving components of the disk drive. This is because disk drives are typically quite sensitive to rotational motion and high G forces at high frequencies. While semiconductor memories such as solid state memories generally are not prone to such vibration damage, as noted above, because of cost it may not be economically feasible to use such memories in high stress environments where movement or vibration is likely if large data storage capacities are required.
As a result, attempts have been made to reduce the effects of shock and vibration on disk drives so that they will be less prone to errors or damage from movement or vibrations. One prior art example is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,097,608 to Berberich et al. entitled “Disk Drive Vibration Isolation Using Diaphragm Isolators.” The patent discloses a diaphragm isolator frame for supporting a disk drive in a rack or other enclosure while providing isolation from undesirable vibrations from other disk drives, components mounted in the enclosure, or from the environment. The diaphragm isolator frame includes a pair of side rails having diaphragm isolators formed of thinned portions of the side rails. Each diaphragm has a centrally located press-pin for supporting the disk drive. Further, the thickness and diameter of the diaphragms may be chosen to provide vibration isolation at a desired frequency.
While such prior art devices may provide some vibration isolation, they still may not be suitable for high stress environments where large amounts of movement or vibration are commonplace, such as in certain mobile applications. For example, computers aboard planes, ground vehicles, etc. may be subject to rather violent shaking that may cause a disk drive mounted according to the prior art to fail or be damaged during writing and/or reading operations. Nonetheless, with the ever increasing advancements in technology, computers with ever higher memory storage capacities are needed that can accommodate such data intensive technologies as well as the rigors of high stress environments.